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Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

arstechnica.com

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Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#311

Post by sunir »

harry8 wrote: post #244
sunir wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a criminal conviction. It says so in the article. Are you commenting on the disparate sentencing for the company versus an individual? It is a deferred prosecution agreement, which is definitely an aspect of corporatism: that is the pre -eminent rights of corporations over natural people. However there was a criminal conviction of a natural person as well. The DPP was the criminal conviction of the corporati…

Looks to me like the person who holds the job title CEO has engaged in a criminal conspiracy. For profit. Is that really not how it looks to you? Has the CEO been charged? How bad does the crime have to be before the CEO being involved in it before it happened, or becoming aware and profiting from it after without informing the police before the CEO is themselves charged for the CEO's criminal behaviour in engaging i…

I’m not a criminal prosecutor or lawyer nor do I live in the jurisdiction this was tried under.

However, I would wager that the CEO would have to have intentionally and actively cooperated with the criminal act; merely benefiting from it indirectly by running the corporation is insufficient. Hence they indicted the corporation which is directly benefiting.

Even if the CEO was aware and conspiring the prosecutor would still need to prove it. They may not have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.

All that being said it is possible prosecution was pro-corporate biased and refused to burn down a company. I am not discounting that possibility. Regardless it is difficult to win convictions so it is also plausible this is the best win prosecution believed it could get.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#312

Post by wpietri »

Chris2048 wrote: post #263
harry8 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For criminal behaviour from the organisation, the burden of proof needs to be reversed. The CEO should need to prove they did not know and did not endorse tacitally or otherwise and would have reacted strongly to prevent and effectively sanction those responsible if they had found out in advance. It's their job to know. Only if they are a victim of a genuine criminal conspiracy performed by other employees and it can…

I don't think CEO is the right level. It may be the top position with high pay, but a CEO is so high up the food-chain that they touch very little. Any level of management with a direct responsibility is where blame should lie.

If a CEO is so high up the food chain that nothing they do matters, then why should they have the high pay? I don't understand the notion that they're responsible for all of the good things their employees do but none of the bad ones. Especially when, as here, it's the bad ones that are so profitable.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#313

Post by avianlyric »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #270
Larrikin wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same argument that tech corporations say should apply to them. They should be allowed to grow uncontrollably to make as much money as possible but it's actually impossible for them to know the details (moderate content in this specific iteration of the argument) of what they have grown. The point of this thread is the same argument against that very idea. If the organization is so big that the CEO believe…

But you can't know all of that. Imagine some local wallmart having an issue with something (eg. a bunch of expired chemicals, that have to be disposed as dengerous), and they don't want to deal with that in a proper way, and some local manager tells some local worker, to just dump the chemicals into a stream behind the wallmart. Usually noone notices stuff like that, if the chemicals are not "too bad" (=fish die), th…

In this scenario the CEO should be able to point to a body of evidence that show the Walmart has strong and robust procedures for dealing with type of waste, and they provide enough time and training to employees to follow those procedures.

Thus this specific act was the result of an employee failing to follow procedure, despite being given the training and time to do so.

This is the exact burden of proof that is used for health and safety. When an employee is seriously injured, there’s a burden on the employer to demonstrate that took all reasonable precautions to prevent the injury. That mean procedures, training and evidence that those procedures and training is followed, enforced and enough time and space to provided for employees to follow them.

This should exist through the entire chain of command, with each level ensuring that the level below isn’t cutting corners, and it part of a CEO responsibility to build that management framework. I mean it already exists for controlling costs and ensure health & safety in most successful companies, why can’t it exist for all legal and social obligations?

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#314

Post by RIMR »

varispeed wrote: post #295
superfrank wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It basically is a business model for dating sites. Get big enough to be annoying and then wait for Match Group to make an offer. Match Group owns Tinder, Match.com, OkCupid, Hinge, and PlentyOfFish as well as a metric fuck ton of niche sites.

This seems like a huge gaping loophole in capitalism. I think companies should be disallowed to buy competing companies (even via proxy) and companies beyond certain threshold should by law be divided into smaller companies.

Counterpoint: This isn't a "loophole" or a "flaw" in capitalism. This is just capitalism working exactly as it was designed.

The entire point of capitalism is to acquire as much capital as possible, not to be the best at what you do. It's not a meritocracy. The best idea doesn't win - the best FUNDED idea wins, which means whichever dumb idea that benefits the rich the most is what you're going to get.

And if the rich people who own Match.com decide that buying up every competitor and rolling them into their platform is what's going to make them the most money, that's what they are going to do.

Don't view it as a flaw of capitalism that needs to be fixed, think of it as a feature of capitalism that necessitates a conversation about alternatives.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#315

Post by wpietri »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #270
Larrikin wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same argument that tech corporations say should apply to them. They should be allowed to grow uncontrollably to make as much money as possible but it's actually impossible for them to know the details (moderate content in this specific iteration of the argument) of what they have grown. The point of this thread is the same argument against that very idea. If the organization is so big that the CEO believe…

But you can't know all of that. Imagine some local wallmart having an issue with something (eg. a bunch of expired chemicals, that have to be disposed as dengerous), and they don't want to deal with that in a proper way, and some local manager tells some local worker, to just dump the chemicals into a stream behind the wallmart. Usually noone notices stuff like that, if the chemicals are not "too bad" (=fish die), th…

You are confusing "really guilty" with "really knows".

The whole theory behind paying CEOs their current absurd salaries is that they are 5-D chess geniuses, responsible for the value created by up to millions of people doing actual work.

How can a CEO be in control enough to deserve all of the profits but so out of control that they deserve none of the blame?

The practical outcome is that high-level executives create plausible deniability. In your story, they issue edicts like "our chemical disposal bill is too high! Fix it!" or just "Our per-store costs are too high!" and ride roughshod over objections. "Don't bring me problems! Solve them!" The pressure rolls downhill. People trying to do the right thing get yelled at or fired; people doing the wrong thing skate on by, because the metrics look better. So everybody learns to do what the CEO implicitly wants: cutting corners to increase profits.

If the CEOs don't know that's the natural outcome of their behavior then they're negligent or criminally incompetent. If they do, they're just criminals. But they have plenty of money to create enough deniability that they can walk away. Possibly using some lower subordinate as a scapegoat, when he was just responding to incentives that the CEO set up.

In my view, whether or not a CEO has direct knowledge of a direct crime is irrelevant. At the CEO level, they don't have direct knowledge of anything, but they have power over everything. It's not clear to me positions like that should exist, but as long as they do exist, they should be responsible for the whole system that they have so eagerly taken charge of. Ignorance cannot be an excuse.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#316

Post by Symmetry »

beefield wrote: post #276
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can't know all of that. Imagine some local wallmart having an issue with something (eg. a bunch of expired chemicals, that have to be disposed as dengerous), and they don't want to deal with that in a proper way, and some local manager tells some local worker, to just dump the chemicals into a stream behind the wallmart. Usually noone notices stuff like that, if the chemicals are not "too bad" (=fish die), th…

> it's unrealistic to expect the CEO to even know that that local walmart exists Maybe, just maybe we then should not have so large entities that nobody can be responsible for? Limited liability is a massive handout from society to the owners of the Limited liability company and should be priced accordingly. (I do not propose banning limited liability. I propose being more selective how and which operations actually…

That would be nice in a way but then we couldn't have complicated products like laptops or iPhones. Abstraction barriers aren't optional when managing sufficiently complex processes.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#317

Post by wpietri »

onethought wrote: post #268
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things I found incredible about the antitrust hearings this past year was how heavily every Big Tech CEO relied on "I don't know", "I don't recall", or "I'll have to get back to you". Often about things I, an outsider, know of. It strains plausibility they didn't know, they're just punting to a time they aren't under oath.

If it’s a crime for you to misspeak wouldn’t you err on the side of caution? Anti trust hearings of 4 tech companies at once... ridiculous... All 4 of you have a monopoly on... something! Bullshit politics. You aren’t being forced to use ANY services from big tech in the US there is HEAPS of competition. Just US lawmakers shoring up constituents

This would be more plausible if VCs weren't spending billions openly trying to create the sort of market dominance that lets them exercise outsized pricing power. The book Super Pumped, for example, shows clearly that Uber was seeking a monopoly. They only got a duopoly in which they're the dominant player, but from a pricing perspective that's nearly as good.

It follows from VC efforts that market dominance produces massive profits. That money comes from somewhere. Anti-trust enforcement is way too weak in the US. Congress's motives in going after the tech companies is decidedly mixed, but given decades of laxity, I'll take it as a good start.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#318

Post by harpiaharpyja »

RIMR wrote: post #314
varispeed wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a huge gaping loophole in capitalism. I think companies should be disallowed to buy competing companies (even via proxy) and companies beyond certain threshold should by law be divided into smaller companies.

Counterpoint: This isn't a "loophole" or a "flaw" in capitalism. This is just capitalism working exactly as it was designed. The entire point of capitalism is to acquire as much capital as possible, not to be the best at what you do. It's not a meritocracy. The best idea doesn't win - the best FUNDED idea wins, which means whichever dumb idea that benefits the rich the most is what you're going to get. And if the ric…

I'm sick of this meme. The purpose of any institution - economic, political, social - is to serve some function and if we can modify it to better serve whatever function we desire, we should be able to do so without disingenuous aholes in comment threads bitching through their 1-dimensional ploy to shut down all conversation that doesn't include their pet solution of "burn down everything so we can implement the system I want"

How about this: Improving what is there IS an alternative, and one that must be seriously considered.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#319

Post by PakG1 »

Chris2048 wrote: post #263
harry8 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For criminal behaviour from the organisation, the burden of proof needs to be reversed. The CEO should need to prove they did not know and did not endorse tacitally or otherwise and would have reacted strongly to prevent and effectively sanction those responsible if they had found out in advance. It's their job to know. Only if they are a victim of a genuine criminal conspiracy performed by other employees and it can…

I don't think CEO is the right level. It may be the top position with high pay, but a CEO is so high up the food-chain that they touch very little. Any level of management with a direct responsibility is where blame should lie.

It is the CEO's job to set the organizational culture and expectations. CEO doesn't need to know what's going on farther down the food chain, but the CEO is responsible for setting the culture in which they make their decisions.

Re: Ticketmaster admits it hacked Songkick before it went out of business

#320

Post by nswest23 »

SulfurHexaFluri wrote: post #170
nathanyz wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is one of the great imbalances in the justice system where technically corporations are people, but criminally don't face anywhere near the same levels of punishment.

IMO everyone related to a corporate crime should be responsible. If a company dumps toxic waste in to a river, the person who pressed the dump button, the person who told them to and any management that signed off on the idea should all be personally as responsible as if I just took a bucket and walked down to the local river. Perhaps some exceptions for people who could not be expected to understand the law, for exa…

plausible deniability at every level makes this impossible.
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